Half A Chance eBook

“Your good opinion flatters me.”
Steele’s eyes met the other’s squarely;
then he made a brusk movement. “But if you
are ready?”

Their blades crossed. Ronsdale’s suppleness
of wrist and arm, his cold steadiness, combined with
a knowledge of many fine artifices, had already made
him a favorite with those of the men who cared to back
their opinions with odd pounds. As he pressed
his advantage, the girl’s eyes turned to John
Steele; her look seemed to express just a shade of
disappointment. His manner, or method, appeared
perfunctory, too perfunctory! Why did he not
enter into the contest with more abandon? Between
flashes of steel she again saw the scar on his arm;
it seemed to exercise a sort of fascination over her.

What had caused it, this jagged, irregular mark?
He had not said. Lord Ronsdale’s words,
“A recent wound—­perhaps Mr. Steele
is too modest—­” returned to her.
It was not so much the words as the tone, an inflection
almost too fine to notice, a covert sneer. Or,
was it that? Her brows drew together slightly.
Of course not. And yet she felt vaguely puzzled,
as if some fine instinct in her divined something,
she knew not what, beneath the surface. Absurd!
Her eyes at that moment met John Steele’s.
Did he read, guess what was passing through her brain?
An instant’s carelessness nearly cost him the
match.

“Ten to five!” one of the men near her
called out jovially. “Odds on Ronsdale!
Any takers?”

“Done!”

She saw John Steele draw himself back sharply just
in time; she also fancied a new, ominous gleam in
his eyes. His demeanor underwent an abrupt change.
If Ronsdale’s quickness was cat-like, the other’s
movements had now all the swiftness and grace of a
panther. The girl’s eyes widened; all vague
questioning vanished straightway from her mind; it
was certainly very beautiful, that agility, that deft,
incessant wrist play.

“Hello!” Through the swishing of steel
she heard again the man at her side exclaim, make
some laughing remark: “Perhaps I’d
better hedge—­”

But even as he spoke, with a fiercer thrusting and
parrying of blades the end came; a sudden irresistible
movement of John Steele’s arm, and the nobleman’s
blade clattered to the floor.

“Egad! I never saw anything prettier!”
Sir Charles came forward quickly. “Met
your match that time, Ronsdale,” in a tone the
least bantering.

The nobleman stooped for his foil. “That
time, yes!” he drawled. If he felt chagrin,
or annoyance, he concealed it.

“Lucky it wasn’t one of those real affairs
of honor, eh?” some one whom Ronsdale had defeated
laughed good-naturedly.

Again he replied. Steele found himself walking
with Jocelyn Wray toward the window. Across the
room a footman who had been waiting for the conclusion
of the contest, and an opportune moment, now approached
Lord Ronsdale and extended a salver.